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Writer's pictureShirley Riga

Individually Together


I’m lost today not knowing what to write about, slashing every idea with my inner critic reminding me it’s not good enough.


Sometimes I am blown away by my High Power and find comfort and inspiration in my words. Other days I am blocked by judgment wandering among poems and thoughts looking for something to inspire me. I am lost. It’s easier sorting out solid facts, organizing the physical chaos.


I put myself up on a pedestal and crash down. I lie flat at the bottom of the barrel and pick myself up. I am a yoyo. I hear myself share with others my wisdom and hit the wall in my confusion. This being human part is hard. This being spirit part is fleeting. I want constant. I want control. I want the expected. I want to be free of my doubt.


Usually, my confusion comes days after I am inspired by an expansiveness beyond my understanding. My mind literally goes beyond its ability to make sense and I am left speechless. I boomerang back to the basics of brushing my teeth, eating and sleeping.


This past week held stunning miracles of the heart. Several times I awoke to a mundane day and then got blown away by visions in meditation. I go to sleep feeling somewhat normal and wake to infinity. I don’t know how to live one foot in this physical world and the other foot in the energy world. I live not knowing.


Back at the end of 2005, I was shuffling along with my life with a growing inner knowing and feeling there is more. I have a constant task accepting that my body is really an antenna hearing and feeling everything around me. Back then I experienced repeated visions that didn’t make sense. My inside guidance posed questions to me asking if I were alone, what would make me happy? I had no answer. I wasn’t alone. I kept seeing flashes of a different living situation. I was confused. I was uneasy. I felt like something was going to happen. I lived not knowing


Of course, it all makes sense now. My then wife was killed in a car accident. I did end up living alone and my living situation were the visions I saw of people gathering around me sleeping on the floor helping me cope with the traumatic change in my life.


It’s no great surprise we are all on the cusp of change, with the vaccine more prevalently available, awareness of so many changes and the shifting from the old paradigm to new ways of existing. We are living through a major change or ascension


I’m not jumping to any conclusion that my life will change so dramatically as it did then. I don’t sense any upcoming traumas. I do sense this meditation community is central to my life and our lives. I do sense each of us is participating in this meditation community and are living metaphors of breaking open and healing. We are demonstrating the power of giving ourselves what we so desperately want from outside of us. We are demonstrating by our very existence the answers we want are within. We are a living, breathing community with strong boundaries, maintaining a silent inward focus.


When some struggle, others stand tall. When some fall, others inspire. When some experience joy, we all feel it. We are a living breathing entity. We are living in the new paradigm gentling ourselves, loving ourselves, respecting ourselves and we are shifting everyday as we live in extraordinary awareness honoring our divine natures.


There is power in not knowing. We weather together. We inspire together. Thank you for participating individually together.



I cannot tell you how the light comes. What I know is that it is more ancient than imagining.


That it travels across an astounding expanse to reach us.


That it loves searching out what is hidden, what is lost, what is forgotten or in peril or in pain.


That it has a fondness for the body, for finding its way toward flesh, for tracing the edges of form, for shining forth through the eye, the hand, the heart.


I cannot tell you how the light comes, but that it does. That it will. That it works its way into the deepest dark that enfolds you, though it may seem long ages in coming or arrive in a shape you did not foresee.


And so may we this day turn ourselves toward it. May we lift our faces to let it find us. May we bend our bodies to follow the arc it makes. May we open and open more and open still to the blessed light that comes.


Participants’ Reflections:

  • During the meditation, I was on those visual quests that I go on sometimes. There was a river. I was working on a puzzle and my puzzle pieces were floating down the river. I was desperate to know where they were and how to get them all out again, and not knowing if I was going to be able to find all the puzzle pieces. A lot about life. I was unable to find them all. I was in a yoga position, downward facing dog. A dog came by and licked me on the tummy. Lighten up. Even if I can’t find all the puzzle pieces, I still have an idea of the whole picture. And whether I know everything or not, it really doesn’t make any difference. The dog was making me laugh. It was a wonderful journey.

  • Not knowing has always been a huge trigger for me because it represents not feeling safe. One of the hugest things that has changed for me over the last year, sitting in silence I have more of a foundation of safety so that I can be in the not-knowing and not feel terrified by it. It still rocks me in an unsettling way, but I’m not so terrified that it immobilizes me.

  • I have always been uncomfortable with the phrase ‘living the questions.’ That’s my overlap with the not-knowing. I used to hate that phrase. I had a predictable life, I liked it that way. In my more recent years, it’s been different and my comfort level has improved but still not comfortable with living the questions. But in this week, I’ve found myself enjoying the freedom of not knowing. An invitation to possibilities, of being in the present because I don’t know. I’m not making detailed plans or projecting a script. It’s shifting. I felt it in my heart and gut when you spoke of this group meaning so much to you because I know, in the little time I’ve been part of this group, it means a lot to me. It has happened in my life’s journey when I needed an open door to walk through. During the meditation, I wrote ‘Gathering of kindred souls, each one unique, with much in common, parts of an ever-growing jigsaw puzzle. This group tills my soil making it ready to receive new seeds.’

  • Thank you. I’ve observed in myself a huge swing of emotion right now. The line about it feeling like a yoyo and that we are entering a new paradigm. I am feeling that shift personally and externally. It’s almost beyond grasp, except there are these powerful rays of light that come in, and then I’ll have a moment of confusion. Where we are in our state and county, the pandemic is subsiding. But with the neighboring states not being in the same situation, we are feeling so vulnerable because there are so many variants. It’s like a childhood game of peekaboo right now. I can feel the power of the new era, for me personally and what I’m going to do in the world, and also for all of us in our healing through this passageway. I feel like we are in a portal and it’s still a peekaboo. It’s only by going within that I can find that center and that core. I’ve done a lot of meditation work for many, many years, but I have never experienced the kind of shift that is going on and the vulnerability of that. I’m happy and also scared in the middle of this turn. Other people are feeling this too.

  • I am very thankful for this group. I have grown a lot. It brings up ways to grow through the meditation. Yesterday, I drove 400 miles to get to a funeral and back. I went to bed and when I tried to fall asleep, I would see the road in front of me going on and on. I was driving and lose control. The car would shift, go fast and there would be no brakes. I was thinking about it. Life is getting back to normal. Then I thought about that and realized there is still room for growth and still opportunities to bring that car back on the road. I’m sure part of it was physiological. But it was also a metaphor for where we are. We’re on that road and we’re going forward. Sometimes the car just wants to go a different way.

  • Thank you everyone for being here and sharing yourselves. Last night, in the middle of the night, I got up and sat in front of the fireplace. I could look out the windows, see the silhouettes in nature, the lake, the trees. When you were reading this morning, I felt like that’s where I was last night. Today, during the meditation, I was back in this place where I’m trying to be present. I’m trying to live in the awareness and not check out. Checking out is being in my mind, ruminating on stuff. Last night, I was listening to Eckard Tolle and he was saying something meaningful, but my mind went somewhere else, like the car going off the road. I wanted to hear it, I thought I could replay it and hope I could stay on the road. Then I thought maybe this is the driver, acknowledging that I am missing stuff but going off the road. When you talked about confusion, that’s what it felt like to me. That I’m on a mission, I’m getting there, I feel it, there’s transformation, whoops, I’m in the ditch, and I pull back. I’m okay with ditches today because I know that when I get back on the road, I’ll be more grounded in where I am going and I’ll have looked at the map.

  • In ten years, we’ll have self-driving cars. I’m not sure I want that, following along this theme. On one hand, I could be a passenger and not have to think about it. On the other hand, and what I’ve drawn from the conversation this morning, as a driver, you have to constantly be adjusting and you have to be aware and living in the moment. If you aren’t living in the moment when you are driving, you are in trouble. This is an incredible metaphor for life.

  • You can be driving and be in a hypnotic state so that it’s your subconscious that is in the moment, and your conscious is all over the place. That’s the question, about staying present consciously. Thank you for this reading today, talking about the unknown. In reality, we never know what is going to happen. We never know what the future will be. We are actually always living in the unknown. We live in the illusion of the persistence of our situation, our house, our needs being met. In reality, none of it is true. I’ve lived through house fires, I know everything can go in a minute. It brings up fear. I love that we talk about expectancy here. Living in expectancy, we don’t know what is going to happen, but we can be curious about what is coming in the future. One way to relieve our anxiety about the future is to focus on expectancy.

  • I appreciate those phrases about this group and what we do for each other. I know that if I didn’t sit quietly for 15 minutes, I’d start crying. I know it’s good to get the pain out. A few days ago we spoke about ‘enough’. I feel like I am not enough, or that I don’t have enough in me to stop worrying about my son. He has several conditions that make him so ill. We have a genetic condition that causes reactions to mold. It limits what I can do. It’s that feeling of not knowing how to do all this. We need help. Thank you for this group.

  • Thank you for speaking up. It is really hard and it is really painful. And often we can’t find the answers right when we are feeling the pain. We have to breathe through it. Participate in life so that we can receive the gifts from people who love us, and from circumstances that reveal themselves, from help that is offered. Your tears are welcome. So keep breathing. In the energy world, we share everything together. We feel the tears, feel the joy, the sadness, the helplessness, we feel the solutions, we feel inspiration. We stand with you. It takes a lot of courage to walk through fear, to take the steps that are in front of us. We are not alone.

  • Sometimes when I’m in a tough spot, I imagine a circle around me. I’ve done this with groups over the years. When it’s hard to breathe, feel our presence and imagine us in a circle around you. We’ll be there and we’ll feel it.

  • I know at times when I’m in such pain that the choice to do something is stopped by my pain and it takes effort to push through the pain to help me. It’s something I still do. It could be as simple as turning on inspiring music or a guided meditation that can move me from where I am and I resist it. The pain hurts so much I’m transfixed in it. It takes courage to push through it.

  • Remember the pine tree in your yard, look for some bird, some squirrel, some animal that will speak to you.

  • I honor each one of you in your journeys. I honor the pain and joy and inspiration and struggle. It is an incredibly powerful process. We do have our feet planted on the ground, whether it’s in this world or the energy world or both. We are on a journey together. Thank you. Thank you for your willingness to look within and to feel. It does take courage and it’s an extraordinary life we live individually together. I hope you all have a gentle day.


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